Plains.

The Southland Plains have already been mentioned. They have a length of nearly forty miles with a breadth of about twenty-page 8six miles. A remarkable circumstance connected with these plains is that they are continued up the valleys of the Mataura, Oreti, and Jacob Rivers, and wrap completely round the hills that properly bound them inland, so that we might consider the Southland Plains as extending up to the Five River Plain, Long Ridge, and the Pyramid, out of which the Moonlight Range and Hokonui Hills stand like islands.

With the exception of the Waitaki plains and Inch Clutha, at the mouth of that river, all the other plains in Otago lie inland. The principal are the Maniototo plains, 28 miles long, and with an average breadth of about 10 miles; Idaburn Valley, with a length of 25 and a breadth of 4 miles; Manuherikia plains, with a length and breadth of about 35 and 4 miles respectively; and the Upper Clutha plains, with a length of 33 miles and an average breadth of about 5 or 6 miles. Plains of smaller extent are found in many other places, as at Strath Taieri, Lower Taieri, Tokomairiro, Tapanui, Moa Flat, &c. A considerable extent of land, some 70 miles in length by 20 in width, stretching from the Shag river between the Rock and Pillar and Silver Peak hills, through Waipori and Lawrence to the Clutha, may be considered as an elevated plain or plateau, some 1500 feet above the sea, and deeply cut through by the streams that cross it.